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Bastrop city attorney JC Brown resigns abruptly during council meeting

Bastrop city attorney JC Brown resigns abruptly during council meeting

Bastrop’s city attorney resigned Tuesday night effective immediately after she said some council members’ actions proved it was no longer in the city’s interest or in her own to continue serving as legal counsel.

“It might surprise some to learn that nearly every council member has privately spoken with me to assure me that he or she wants me to continue my work as city attorney, and a majority have gone so far as to express those sentiments publicly,” JC Brown said during staff announcements at the City Council meeting Tuesday night. “But the public message being orchestrated by a couple of city officials seems to be consistently to the contrary.”

Brown’s contract was up for discussion Tuesday night. She said the council was slated to evaluate her performance but instead she was warned “that it’s more along the lines of a surprise termination.”

This year, Council Member Gary Schiff proposed the city explore hiring an in-house city attorney after residents complained about Bastrop’s climbing legal expenses. In the past 18 months, Brown has collected nearly $600,000 for her services, according to city records. Brown is Bastrop’s contract city attorney and bills by the hour.

During the same period, Bastrop spent $1.68 million in total legal fees for Brown and other attorney’s handling pending legal matters.

Brown’s resignation was the second high-ranking departure this year accusing council members’ actions as the reasons for leaving.

Former Bastrop City Manager Mike Talbot resigned in February after he said the council was meddling into the administration of the city, including rebuffing his analyses that Brown would be less expensive than hiring an in-house city attorney, who would need an office, furniture, law library subscriptions and staff, among other things.

The council declined to accept Talbot’s February resignation and Schiff backed away from his proposal.

During the summer, council members Deborah Jones and Bill Peterson campaigned during their bids for election to the City Council to lower the city’s legal bills. Shortly after her election, Jones proposed in May the city explore hiring an in-house city attorney and the council supported the proposal.

After the city’s new direction and the publicly deteriorating relationship between the council and Talbot, he resigned in June, effective Sept. 1.

Likewise, Brown also blamed tensions with some council members for her departure.

“This negativism, which I believe is entirely unwarranted, has now escalated to an extent that I simply no longer have the energy or desire to continue to subject my good name and hard-earned reputation to it any further,” Brown said.

Brown said she didn’t take her decision lightly and was assured by interim City Manager Steve Adcock this month that Mayor Ken Kesselus had expressed that no advance notice was needed for Brown’s departure, as a replacement was immediately available.

Kesselus and Adcock deny that claim. “I never said that,” Kesselus said.

Unsettled that the council and staff no longer had a city attorney, council members voted 3-1 Tuesday night to allow Kesselus and Adcock to hire an interim city attorney until Brown’s replacement was named, despite the matter not being on the agenda.

But after the Bastrop Advertiser questioned the council’s vote authorizing the hiring of an interim city attorney without its consideration and possible action being included in Tuesday’s agenda, council members met in executive session to discuss the newspaper’s query and later decided, in open session, to rescind their vote.

“I realize it’s questionable whether that item would have worked for what we wanted to do — just to give (Adcock) somebody for a few days or a week,” Kesselus said. “… Without an attorney to ask whether it’s legal or not, we said ‘Let’s assume it’s not, it wasn’t legal.’” Kesselus said.

The possible hiring of an interim city attorney will be included in the agenda for the council’s Aug. 2 meeting, he said.

Brown served as the city’s attorney since 1999.

For months, the council’s relationship with Brown had become hostile, causing the city attorney to hire legal representation in June to protect her from being fired during an executive session she was asked not to attend, her attorney said.

Kesselus said some council members wanted to hire outside legal counsel to review Talbot’s contract after his resignation, as she “is very close with Mike (Talbot).”

Ultimately, the council never hired another attorney to review Talbot’s resignation, after the former city manager said he didn’t want severance pay.

“I wish only the best to the city’s faithful employees and consultants, many of whom I have enjoyed working with for almost two decades,” Brown said.